Thank you so much even if you just clicked on this - I totally feel like I'm writing into a void haha.
Welcome to Calypso's Siren - I felt like Finnick and Annie's story never received the love that it deserved. I'm a huge fan of Finnick x Annie but struggle with the helpless & hopeless idea of Annie. There's a line in Mockingjay where Katniss reflects upon Annie, quoting her as unstable but not as mad as described. I genuinely think Annie was quite cunning and elusive, and knew how to play the system just as well as everyone else. The only downside is having PTSD - but didn't they all?
This is like my own personal love letter to women who have gone through trauma but are more than their breakdowns.
I'd love if you can play this while you read! watch?v=YJEnhffr5Vg - paste into Youtube
For a moment, a fog engulfs me - the moisture circling around my head, sinking into my skin, drawing itself down my throat. Every sense feels elusive as I make a desperate attempt to tether myself to anything concrete. Sobs ravage my body as I play a scene in my head, though it is a scene that hasn't happened yet.
A loud crash from an adjacent room causes my teeth to clamp down on my tongue, feeling relief of the metallic bitterness that follows suite. For now, I am alive. I am breathing - this is proof. I try to ignore the taste, but it's a filling my mouth at a pace identical to the man storming towards my open door.
Dad lingers in the doorway, gripping a jar that makes my nose instinctively scrunch. It's strong and spilling down the edges, his breath smelling of spoiled fruits and sour wheat. I hate it.
His anger is evident as he scans me up in down, assessing the damage of my latest outburst. He is a specter of disdain and lost sympathy, a relic of who he was. There are days that I wish he had pulled it together, had been the same father that dipped our toes in the water and danced with us in the living room. Other days, I wish he had just left. Gone away, forgotten us, anything to make the pieces of himself begin to reassemble. Instead of either, he turned to a mistress in the form of liquid fire and drowned in his sins.
He leans, hand clenching the doorframe's remnants, oblivious in sickness, wrapped in spite. I wait for it to break under his weight, for he is quite strong and well-built for a fisherman. It groans and creaks but remains steadfast. He silently scrutinizes me in his drunken haze, comparing every twitch of my form to hers. He doesn't need to speak to show this, his green eyes narrow and his mouth is held in a snarl. His face twisted into something that looks remarkably like resentment.
"Your mother did this to you." It comes out with venom. He's slurring so much that anyone else would not catch it - but I've been here before. His words have long slipped down my throat in battered sobs and carved themselves into my very core.
"Nothing to do with you at all. She's ruined every ounce of you."
His words are harsh and the corners of my mouth begin to taste like salt. I force myself to relax my jaw, resisting the impulse to react. Instead, I focus on clawing the wooden base of my battered bedside. The rotting wood easily finds a home beneath my fingernails, releasing the smell of moss and oak. Another tether to reality.
He waits, waiting for my resolve to crumble. I try. Giving him the breakdown that he wants is what my body screams for. I'm exhausted — he is exhausting. He wants, no, needs proof of any signs of weakness in order to justify his brigade. When the seams start to fray and my shoulders begin to shake, he takes his opportunity.
"I was told women from Seven are strong. Were you strong enough to watch the Games last year, Annie? A woman from Seven dominated that fucking arena. She is what I was told. And I got stuck with you,"
He spits and it lands at my feet.
"Your mom had the looks, I'll give the bitch that. But fuck, her bloodline is tainted." His gestures punctuate his words. Even in death, she bears the burden of his rage.
He forgets to add what was unsaid. Every fiber of your being reminds me of her and I cannot stand it.
"I'm fine, Dad. Really." I repeat and we pretend that my voice didn't crack twice.
I try not to acknowledge that he wants me to beg for forgiveness for being born from my mother. Every fiber of his being has been enraged since she left. He died with her, whatever is left is not my father. It's all he can do to stay breathing. I stare back, though it only adds fuel to the fire and he sneers. The distance between the foot on my bed and the hallway seems immeasurably large, freezing, but I try my best not to quiver. I fail at that, too.
I'm too busy shoving my face between my knees to notice his retreat, instead it's signaled by the sound of a slamming door and the attempted start of a dying boat engine. It begins my opportunity to drag myself to the wash. I subtly wipe up liquor and spit, dragging along an old sock as I move. Numbness encases me, but perhaps that's for the best. Isn't it?
I catch myself in the shards of recently broken glass littering the hallway. I pass a mirror - I turn away. I do not want to look at her - and she does not want to be seen. The reflection burns.
I keep moving, albeit slowly, as though I am at risk of crumbling at any given second. Maybe I am. This is all routine at this point. I grab a chunk of ice from our small insulated fridge and forcefully breathe through my mouth. The smell of fish is too apparent for my taste - combined with an uneasy stomach still recovering from our fight, I refuse to take the chance to inhale the slimy scent, instead focusing on my thoughts as I hold it beneath my eyes. The burn of the ice begins to settle into my bones and I welcome the pain, a change from the usual shroud of nothingness. However, it does little to soothe the thoughts ricocheting in my head. Today is the day of the Reaping - and my breath hitches at the reminder.
"This is the first year that you took out tesserae. It's not going to be you. Even if it was, someone would volunteer."
I don't bother to turn, instead opting to watch Kaia in the echo of our glass back-door. The scorn of pity looks less vicious in the reflection.
"I'm going on the boat before the Reaping. Come." Her voice carries a demand tempered by sympathy, the illusion of choice offered. She steps forward, pulling my body towards her in what little comfort she knows how to give.
And it is comforting. Kaia is the only sense of security that I've felt for a very long time. I'd like to think that I can offer the same to her, though I have a hunch that she's too busy being protective to benefit from it. She pulls away and stares at me, unapproving but lacking judgement.
"Sit down." She ushers towards the wash and I force myself to comply. I sit on a closed porcelain, she digs in a drawer; the air is suffocating.
Kaia moved in silently, a gentle hum echoing through the enclosure. I kept my gaze averted, trying to avoid meeting myself in the bathroom mirror. I didn't want to confront the bruises on my skin, the dark circles beneath my eyes, the sickly pallor that had become a constant. But despite my best efforts to evade it, glimpses of my reflection taunted me in the periphery.
Kaia's comb moved through my hair in patient strokes, her silence a comforting gesture. We didn't need to talk about it. I didn't deserve that. She knew it too.
She shook her head gently, the comb stilling for a moment. Her lips separated, paused, before opting for silence. Instead, she began braiding my rust shaded hair. I watched her olive hands dig into my locks, going through the motions that she surely has memorized. I wonder if Mom taught her this - or if she sat alone on the floor of her room braiding the hair of her dolls in anticipation for this moment. She separates the top half of my hair, creating a fishtail braid on each side. I try not to flinch when she pulls it tight. She hesitates, thinks, and decides to meet the two to create one large fishtail that sits on the scrunched waves of the bottom half.
She snaps the elastic before looking in the mirror. I look away when her eyes fall to the floor.
"Alright. Yeah, you're alright. Let's go."
Kaia moved through the decrepit shed, each footstep a sure marker of her location. It had seen better days. It was likely to never see them again. It seems like the only thing we are capable of is destruction here. Everything around us seems to twist, snap, and shatter before we follow suite. Ignoring the ghost in the hallway, she snaps the front door open and rushes out, essentially running towards our docked boat. I pause in the doorway, watching. She naturally excludes the grace of a victor, easily maneuvering through the dock to fetch our swaying raft. Her presence demands reverence and I say a silent thank you to the spirits of the sea for offering her this protection. She's long been ineligible for the Games at 22 and I begin to suspect that the spirits only look after their own.
My attempt to follow halts abruptly as I begin to catch up to her. The sensation of the sand against my bare feet offers a comfort that is rarely given and I try to soak in this moment. Just in case my name is drawn from that crystal bowl, I want to remember this. Weather worn slabs of wood and the smell of salt in the air, screeching fowls in the distance as they fight against the waves. This is me, and this is home.
She looks so happy. Her entire body stretches towards the waves as the tide pulls aggressively today. The spirits know that they are losing one of their own today. Kaia doesn't seem to mind; instead, she seems to greet the splashes with a warm welcome. It doesn't take long for her yellow sundress to be stained with sea salt; an obvious reminder of the day, once again, our usual attire tucked away and our best hanging over frail skin.
Kaia taps the boat's wooden boards, wordlessly urging me to snap out of it. Move. I climb aboard and hug my knees back to my chest. The sun has barely crept in and the air still bites at my skin, but it's a reprieve from the sweat and panic of this morning. I hardly notice when she pushes the small vessel further into the waves.
"I'm going to miss this." I murmur, though I'm not sure whether I'm talking to myself or Kaia.
"Miss what? You're so much like mom is, Annie. You worry too much."
"Like how Mom was."
"Like how Mom was."
There's an understood silence. I lean back, hoping for the sun to consume me. Can it burn me up? Spread my ashes amongst the wind before I ever stand before another Reaping.
"Do you ever miss her?" Kaia is the first to break the silence. I contemplate whether she can read my thoughts or if the look on my face gives it away.
"Sometimes. It depends. I don't know."
And truly I don't. Mom - a mix of honeyed coastal florals on good days, ash and whiskey on bad ones. She'd wander around with crimson pouring from her skin, a glaze over her eyes that verified that she wasn't fully aware of the things in front of her. But in her daze, in whatever nightmare consumed her from week to week, she would brush my hair and sing lullabies. She would rock herself from heel to heel while throwing her arms over me, matching her rhythm to the boats that swayed through the window. And we would just exist in each other's presence. And we would pretend to not notice the smell of blood in the air, or how rough the gauze was against my skin.
"Do you know why? Why was she like that, Kaia?"
Kaia's features soften, hesitancy evident, her eyes going distant before allowing in a deep breath. I decided to lean back into the hull, letting myself be set aflame with my eyes closed. This small act of privacy is the best I can offer.
"Maybe not today. Or any day. There's never a good day to talk about Mom unraveling, I guess," she scoffed. I'm not sure who at.
"One of her friends was a tribute in the 59th Hunger Games. In true District 4 fashion, she teamed with the careers. With us. We are the careers, you know. Despite how shitty our life is here." The lack of hidden cameras often gave Kaia an increased confidence and rage.
"She made it pretty far, I've seen the games. I found an old copy of it before we found Mom with a piece of rope wrapped,"
Anger surges, her breath hitching.
"Forget it. But I found the copy. She was stabbed - repeatedly. Mom watched it, lost it. It was easier for Dad to protect you, you were still young. You didn't get it yet. Me? I would catch her in the middle of the night, curled up on the couch, a copy of the games flashing from the TV. Over, and over, and over..."
I rolled over to take a peak at her, only to see her trying to catch her composure. Decided it's best to bury my face in folded arms instead. This is already hard, and she doesn't need someone staring at her in pity to make it worse.
"She was stabbed. The tribute from Two threw knives that hit its target but not with the intended accuracy. There was so much blood, I'm not sure exactly where she was hit. She bled out slowly. The recording has her screams, her begs for someone to kill her. Nobody did. Sometimes I would find Mom on the kitchen floor, carving her legs."
I winced.
"Sorry. She was in a lot of pain. She's not in pain now."
"Dad is."
"Yeah."
"I look just like her," I move my head to rest in my folded hands. "He has a hard time with it. I see the way he looks at me."
She leans back and doesn't deny it. But we know. With every sway to the rhythm of the ocean, every soft lullaby in the pitch black of our home, every breakdown.. every unraveling.
"I wish Mom fixed it rather than handing it to me. It feels like some sick generational curse."
"Maybe it is."
"Maybe. When we were little, I always loved how Nana would pinch me, telling me that I was their own piece of District 7 in District 4. They seemed so proud that we represented our parents, that you represented a piece of Dad and I represented a piece of Mom" The last part came out dirtier than intended. Kaia holds her tongue.
"Then she took a kitchen knife and carved herself to pieces in disgust with herself. So now here I am, wondering what this means for me, the identical copy of mom, when mom hated every piece of herself."
"Funny how that turned out. I'm the embodiment of a drunken abuser, you of a self-destructive lunatic."
We laugh and let that be.
The sound of the ocean surged forth, filling the gaps in conversation with its ceaseless rhythm.
The boat swayed softly - offering a small amount of solace. The wind whips through my hair, occasionally blurring my vision. I silently ask if it would be too much to go out this peacefully.
My feet dip into the water, soothing the burn beginning to develop. I wonder if they'll try to make it interesting this year - purposefully rig the drawing to someone in particular or force the names of a victor's family. There's a lot of them, now. My skin seems to burn in response, as if the sea begins to whisper a silent reprimand. It's not as though they'll ever admit to it. That likely wouldn't happen this year, or maybe it would, but nobody from District Four has made it past the Cornucopia since Finnick Odair.
A 14 year old is considered a child in the games, the Capitol's show that they can brutally murder the youngest of our children without resistance. A sharp stab collects in my chest as I recall his games, he was too young to understand that type of pain. It was my second year of eligibility, I was only a year younger than him. That moment developed my fear, as though if a boy from the class above me can be subject to that brutality, than so can I.
But he won, and he survived, though surely benefiting from the help of a wealthy family's training capabilities and hailing from a Career district. He continued this luxurious life, if you don't believe in the rumors, that is. Whispers between the women of our district, spoken behind closed doors of how the Capitol sells him off in return for his defiance. The defiance of refusing an agonizing death for show.
Everyone praises him when he comes home, lines up the street on the Victor's Village with gifts. I think some of them are pining for those rumors to be true. It's silly, watching girls line up stuffed manatees to the home of a man who comes home with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. He tries to hide it, but when you live in a cycle of exhaustion, you learn to recognize those who do too.